Have pigeons been playing on your solar panels?

"We had our solar panels installed in January last year and are very pleased with their efficiency," writes a YouGen reader. "However, something that no-one mentioned to us is that we would be plagued by pigeons thereafter.

"They have become a complete pest with both noise and mess being a major issue. We have spent money having spikes fitted around the panels and on the roof ridges as they were nesting under the panels. But it seems that we cannot rid ourselves of them and there can be up to 18 pigeons on our roof at one time. They actually slide down the panels. We are almost at our wits end and wonder if anyone can help us please."

All stories about pigeons and solar panels welcome (add them in the comment section below). They are expecially welcome if they come with tried and tested solutions to the problem. I'm also interested to hear seagull stories too, as I guess there may be some overlap.

Comments

Hi
We would certainly recommend A&H
http://www.aandhpestcontrol.co.uk/pages/solar-panel-protection
We have had solar panels on our Scout Hall roof for around 5 years and this year pigeons have been nesting underneath them and causing damage to our guttering and annoyance to our neighbours. We decided to go with A&H, as their solution seemed to be more robust than the others and I was also impressed by their overall approach and the materials they were proposing to use.
So far our problem appears to be resolved – no more pigeons!
Steve Ladle

We at Direct Solar Care have treated 1836 houses so far with wire mesh pigeon protection. We have found over the course of this, many people that had used gutter hedgehog (gutter brushes) only to find them extremely ineffective. We notice there is a comment regarding shooting with an air rifle. As a pest control company, we would say this is illegal, and also particularly ineffective on a large number of jobs. We are happy to take any questions regarding it.

Hey, I came across this great article that I found on Google, by at the same time I was impressed by the graphic designs of this website, I want to improve the deisgn of mine, so which company did you use?

My Problem with pigeons is a bit different. My solar panels are quite flat on the roof, so the pigeons don't get under them. However, my wife feeds the pigeons in the garden, along with other wild birds and they run around messing a good few hours of the day on the panels, waiting for feed time.

Of course the droppings is the big problem. Although I have done some checking and the output is not significantly worse when dirty than straight after cleaning, I still think I'd like to be rid of them dirtying the panels. My wife would have a seizure, if I shot them and, quite frankly, I couldn't care less if they are around, I just need them to keep off the panels.

Does anyone have any ideas on a pigeon r repellent, like there are to keep dogs & cats off the grass & out the flower beds? Maybe an electronic ultrasonic generator that will chase them off the panels to another area,where their messing doesn't matter?

Our PV panels were put on late 2013 by an installer we like, but no mention was made of possible pigeon probs. We had 1 nest spring 2014, our installer told us to knock it down which we did.

This spring (2015) we've had 2 nests so far, have knocked both down. The pigeons have tried to build 1 of the nests again (don't know yet about the 2nd one as we only knocked it down yesterday).

I'd like:

(1) Installers to warn new customers of poss pigeon probs so the customers can think about it before going ahead.

(2) Good permanent solutions without costing a lot. (I've seen the wire-mesh-surround solution on YouTube, not sure if wld work on our tiles which are quite thick so could leave gaps. This blog mentions a pipe-brush solution, interested to know rough costs & effectiveness.)

We have suffered the same problem for 12 months. We started with one nesting pair which quickly grew to a regular gang of around 11.

After trawling the internet and struggling to find anything but the wire mesh solution, it was recommended to us to try using the pipe brushes designed for stopping your gutters fill up with leaves. its quite simple to cable tie them together and tuck them just under the lip without attaching to the actual panels.

We had it done this morning and have some very confused pigeons just looking at it at the moment! We have been warned it will take a few days before they completely get the message so fingers crossed!

Seems to be keeping them out and I cant wait for a quiet morning with no dawn chorus, I cant find anyone else who has tried this and I have no idea how long it will last for , but if it works I'll keep you posted :-)

We had a horrendous pigeon problem too. On moving in to our house - which had been vacant for 9 months - we had 105 pigeons on the roof. Local council not interested ("Not a pest sir - now if it had been a rat or wasp's nest....."). Eventually I was given the solution by an old hand:

Acquire a high power air rifle with a telescopic sight and carefully bag two pigeons at the same time every day for two weeks. Your pigeons will learn very fast indeed! Mine did. I even sold the air rifle back to the gun shop. Haven't seen them since!

WARNING!

1. Don't "wing" a pigeon or you will find you are chasing the poor bird through flower beds etc in order to apply the coup de grace.